


Dragon's Breath: A Place at the Table

by SusanaR



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dragons, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, True Love, War of Wrath, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 08:13:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1157224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes what you have to go through to get to fight the dragon is almost as bad as the beast itself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon's Breath: A Place at the Table

Tears burned in her eyes as the fire ravaged the field before them. Bodies, armor, tents....even the river burned. For nothing. They had been halfway into herding the dragon within catapult range, before her father's elves broke their rank. Now the foul beast lived, and would attack them again. 

She had to keep her temper, though. No point in blame now. Wait for the council, wait to see what her father, the new King of the Noldor, would say. 

But the battle ended, the evening came and went. The council of generals and leaders met, and Finarfin made no apology. In fact, he dared to say that the day's failure was the fault of Ereinion, that the cavalry led by the young King's second-in-command (Galadriel herself, although her father didn't say so) had been 'insufficiently prepared and reinforced.' 

Young Gil-galad flushed. 

"That was the plan." Their uncle Cirdan pointed out gently. "Galadriel and her cavalry were to appear to give way, to lure the beast towards the improvised trebuchets." 

"It was more than appearance!" Finarfin replied. 

Galadriel dug her nails into her palms, trying to keep her temper. Everyone was staring at her, as if she were the weak one. She and her elves had been doing as they had been ordered. It was bad enough that she had to struggle to be good at something that honestly did not come easily to her. The independence and power of mastering weaponry had appealed to her for hundreds of years, and she had worked hard at it, but it was not something she was a natural at. She knew that Celeborn worried over her, and when they had traveled in earlier years and met with trouble, if he had told her to fall back, she had nearly always listened. 

But now, Celeborn was not speaking to her, because she had received Maedhros' messenger and protected him from what Celeborn felt was justified retribution on the part of their nephew Amdir and his elves. And now, she had not only to fight, and fight to be allowed to fight, but now she also had to deal with how her idiotic father responded to her fighting. And what he did, others would follow. And she had to respond. 

"I and mine fought well, and did not need your rescue, Aran Finarfin." She told her father, fighting to keep the tears of anger and self-pity and pure exhaustion out of her eyes and voice. Galadriel wanted nothing more than to retreat, and she did have wounded to check on. But the tactics for the next day's battle, and the next week's, must be decided upon. And she was unwilling to relinquish her place at the table, for fear it might not still be there, when she came back. 

A hand found one of hers under the table, strong fingers stroking her palm and soothing the cuts she had made with her fingernails as she fought for self-control. It was Celeborn's hand, and it meant that he was with her again, despite his anger. Galadriel took a deep breath and mastered herself. She could fight any dragon, as long as her husband was beside her.


End file.
